We had another excellent breakfast at Baffa House. It’s been one the better breakfast places on our trip - it varies and hasn’t included eggs every day!
We had another day trip today with our favourite driver, Rita, to visit the Jeita Grotto and Byblos (another common day trip from Beirut).
We almost skipped out on visiting the grottoes based on the descriptions we had read. There aren’t many pics on the web; the site was very strict about its no-photo policy (not exactly sure why). But, as luck would have it, on the flight over to Beirut, the safety video had images of the major tourist sites in Lebanon, and the Jeita Grotto looked cool. The lesson here is to always pay attention to the safety video on flights, even if you already know how to do up a seat belt!
Jeita is close to Beirut, about a 20 minute drive away. We arrived just after 9am. Bought our tickets and took the funicular to the Upper Grotto. We had to leave our camera and phones in the lockers, then we entered a walkway that led to the cave. The cave is filled with stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes. They’ve done a great job of the lighting and the pathway. It’s about a 500m walk in and back out the same way. Because we were there right after it opened, it was easy to walk along and enjoy the views.
Next, we took a short train ride (we could have walked in the five minutes that we waited for more passengers) to the Lower Grotto. Same routine as before with cameras and cell phones, and then boarded a small boat, which seated about 12 people, to tour the lower caves. This was cool, too, almost like a Disney ride except it was the real thing :)
As with the Upper Grotto, we retraced the route to exit. Luckily, we were there early in the morning; in the 10 minutes that it took for our boat ride, there was now a line up of a couple hundred people.
We walked back to the parking lot and met up with Rita. There were now dozens of tour buses in the parking lot. I can’t imagine the lineups inside the grottos. If you are traveling here independently, get here right at 9am!
On the way to Byblos, we took a short detour to Harissa, Rita’s home town. It has a nice cathedral and basilica. It was also a nice drive up through the valley, with great views of the Mediterranean.
Then onto Byblos. Rita pointed out the main highlights to visit and dropped us off to explore for the next three hours.
First, we went to the Fossil Museum. Lebanon is one of the best places in the world for sea fossils, which we didn’t know until we got here. The scientifically valuable fossils are in the MIM museum in Beirut; the smaller and more common ones are sold as souvenirs. I bought one, which came with a nice certificate, which included the Latin name. It’s an ancestor of sardines (and Eric loves his sardines :) - Heather).
It was around 12:30pm, so we figured we’d go to lunch early and beat the crowds. Got a great table at Pepe’s, ocean side (prime seats on the Mediterranean on the weekend). We ordered hummus, fattoush salad, octopus salad, and fried calamari. The local white wine was excellent, and the calamari was so good we ordered another! But, before it arrived, they walked around with freshly baked pitas. They were so fresh I got steam burns opening it up! We then filled up on the yummy pita and forgot to leave room for the calamari. Had some Turkish coffee to finish, with the full lunch taking over two hours, but that was kind of the point of why we were here too :)
After lunch we saw the Roman ruins in Byblos, which included a small fort with a tower you can climb for amazing views. We walked around the rest of the ruins, which was made better with all the wild flowers in bloom.
There’s also a souq in Byblos, but it’s mainly a tourist souq, with some atmospheric cafes and small bars.
We met up with Rita and then drove home. It was a cool little day trip, with good variety and great food. Can’t go wrong with that!
We had some time to relax at the hotel before heading out for dinner. Stopped for pre-dinner drinks at the same place as yesterday. The first time we went out here, we forgot that happy hour runs from about 5pm to 11pm. I tried to pay for our drinks with a credit card. The waiter kindly protested, and showed me the bill, which was under $5. Oops. We didn’t make the same mistake today.
We had dinner at Maryool, which was excellent. We finally ordered the right amount of food too!
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